Bikepacking - Comphurst Farm near Herstmonceux, East Sussex

 It's the August bank holiday weekend and despite concerns that campsites would be absolutely heaving, I decided to do a one night bikepacking trip. Just because. No other reason :-) After doing some Googling for campsites in a 50+ mile radius of home, I selected Comphurst Farm in East Sussex near the quaintly named town of Herstmonceux, which sounds very French but in fact according to the Wikipedia entry... is not!

Anyway, Comphurst Farm offers exactly the type of camping I like. Facilities: one tap and two chemical toilets. And that's (almost) it. From their web site you can see that the "campsite" is just a big field on a farm with an equine bent. I booked, expecting a nice enough 55 mile bike ride but given the weekend that it was, that the camping would be something to endure rather than enjoy. Hordes of people. Barbecues everywhere. Music blaring. PEOPLE HAVING FUN!! You know the kind of thing. Shudder. Mr Miserable here likes quiet :-)

But I was very wrong on both points. The cycling wasn't just nice, it was tremendous. 

My route away from home took me through suburban Banstead and then Coulsdon, both quiet early in the morning when I set off. About six miles from home though, I crossed to the countryside in an instant, cycling up and over Farthing Down with its great views.  

A substantial proportion of the remainder of my route included sections of National Cycling Network Route 21. And the vast majority of R21 follows unmade paths through woodland and farmland. No cars! Just walkers, their dogs and a few other cyclists. It was lovely. 

The route passes through parts of Kent as well as East Sussex and I was surprised to find myself at the gates of Bowles Rocks, a place I did some rock climbing at around 20 years ago when I was new to the sport. Great memories.

Here are some photos of the ride to Comphurst Farm.

Farthing Downs - not yet on R1 but just look at that view!

R1 seemed to pass under several railway lines

I just love English country lanes!

Brilliant. The old phone box is full of books!

So, great cycling and what's more, my legs did very well indeed. All the reps of Box Hill I've been doing this year have definitely improved my fitness.

On arrival at Comphurst Farm, I was greeted by Charles and his father. This is a family run enterprise and it turned out that this was the first year they had offered camping. I was made to feel immediately welcome and Charles walked with me to the camping field to make sure I knew where to go and where the facilities (i.e. the tap) was. And what a wonderful surprise. Bank holiday or no bank holiday, the large field has only 10 pitches, each with a fire pit so there was no crowd and in fact my stay there was quiet. With freely available firewood, I enjoyed sitting outside my tent in the evening, nice and warm by the fire as well.

Photos of the camping field at Comphurst Farm:

First view of the camping field- no sign of those crowds!

Tent up, still getting sorted out

Wonderful view

That fire pit is crying out to be used

The improvised washing line drying and airing the day's cycling clothes!

Fire prepared for later. And I even found a chair!

I had neighbours but look how much space we had

Fire lit and taking hold

Toasty :-)

I was a tad chilly in the night but not so cold as to actually do anything about it. My thermals, hat, silk sleeping bag liner and so on, all stayed in my panniers so it can't have been that cold! In the morning it transpired it had either rained or (more likely) there had just been a very heavy dew. My tent was drenched on the outside but happily was dry on the inside. I was up at 6:15 a.m., ate breakfast (bread and jam of course), packed up and was cycling away from the delightful Comphurst Farm by about 7:30.

A big thank you then to Comphurst Farm and its team. A lovely all too short stay. I hope they can resist the temptation to scale up and go full commercial campsite. It's a wonderful place as it is.

My GPS watch had died with a flat battery part of the way into the journey from home the day before so I don't have complete data for the route in that direction. Fortunately I was able to revive the watch with my Aikove power bank and so have the data for the return journey which simply reversed the outbound trip.

And here are a few photos from the return journey.

The delights of R21

There were scarecrows all over the place! I wasn't scared btw!

Notes on equipment etc

One new item of equipment made its debut on this trip. The new handlebar-mounted smartphone holder which replaced my rubbish frame bag was put to good use and it did very well indeed. Navigating is easy with the holder angled just right and it's super-simple to unclip and remove. Even better, I hadn't realised it but it has a clear window at the back that allows photos to be taken without taking the phone out of the sleeve! The only time I'll need to do that is if I want to mount the phone in my mini-tripod but I only do that every now and again. What I don't yet know is how the new holder handles rain, but it definitely made a good start.

And I had [drum roll] no punctures this trip! It's too early to draw any meaningful conclusions but the new Continental Ride Tour tyres made a good start. Fingers crossed they continue to keep the sharp pointy things away from my inner tubes.

The other new-fangled innovation was not equipment. I have a major trip planned for next year (more on this another time!) and have been researching recommendations on food, drink, what to carry, what not to carry. One issue you instantly encounter is the question of whether to take a stove or not. I already decided. NOT. I don't need the extra weight of a stove, its fuel and whatever I need to cook stuff in. So I'm to dine on cold food unless I go into cafes and restaurants. I learned that for long distance multi-day/week trips, fat is more important than I'd realised. OK, so lots of cheese then! But best of all, I read that instant coffee granules can be mixed with cold water in a bottle and the result is both drinkable and delivers that much needed caffeine kick at the start of the day. So to give this a try I took a ziplock bag with a generous amount of coffee mixed with sugar with me and I mixed it up in a bottle with cold water on the morning of my departure. It may sound revolting to some, but I assure you it was very nice indeed and Starbucks sell something suspiciously similar for far more than it costs to make! Anyway, this is likely to be a standard part of future trips from now on. 

In the Light of Experience

Having done three trips in the last year, I've learned and formed opinions about equipment and the set-up of my bike. I blogged about my impressions in the previous post and closed by mentioning three changes I was intending to make to my tyres, puncture protection and the way I carry my smartphone and use it for in ride navigation. Here's what happened next.

Puncture Protection

Having experienced two punctures in three trips, I decided to get a bit radical in pursuit of a solution. I don't fancy tubeless. It sounds great until the damage is too much for the self-sealing capability and you have to change the tyre. As I understand it from friends who ride tubeless, you really can't repair damage like this  and changing the tyre, your only option, is very hard. I know at least one person who uses an air compressor in the procedure and still finds it hard. 

You absolutely need to be able to repair on a bikepacking trip, even when in the middle of nowhere so Keep It Simple applies and I'm staying with my old-fashioned inner tubes, carrying a spare tube or two and a puncture repair kit.

Whilst researching, I happened upon the Tannus Armour product which sounded very much worth a try so after reading about them I took the plunge and ordered two for a price of £65. Not cheap but if it could make punctures a rarity, a bargain.

They arrived and I studied the fitting instructions and watched the official video. It all sounded straightforward so I took the front wheel off the bike, removed the tyre and inner tube and proceeded to try to fit the Tannus Armour insert inside the tyre with a smaller inner tube as specified by Tannus.

To be honest, the whole thing was a complete and utter nightmare. I found it impossible to fit the Tannus Armour. Not without damaging things anyway. You need so much force to get the damn things on. And in the process, the first time I tried, I caused the base of a spoke nipple to shear off. After fixing the spoke (days later after ordering the replacement spoke nipple online), I tried again and this time just couldn't get the tyre with inserted Tannus Armour back on, not without a massive struggle with tyre levers which scratched my wheel up and it turned out, pinched and tore the inner tube in three places. 

The Tannus video shows the installation procedure but using a very wide MTB tyre which I'm sure must be much easier to work with (but beware... it may still be very tough). 

In the end I have to say I hated this product. The idea is all well and good but unless fitting gets easier, for me it's a non-starter. I sent the product back and got a refund from Amazon. 

Horrible. Avoid unless you like stress and damaging your bike. 

Tyres

Everyone had their own opinion on this and it's hard to make a completely objective decision based solely on empirical data. Considering puncture protection claims, reputation and weight, I went with Continental Ride Tour 37-622 tyres which I'm hoping will give decent puncture protection (I don't expect miracles) and be reasonably fast rolling. They're on the bike and ready for the next trip in a few weeks time!

Smartphone Holder

The frame bag with transparent sleeve I'd been using just wasn't waterproof despite the manufacturer's claim that it was (I've moaned about this enough so I'll leave it there!). After reviewing options on Amazon, and with not a great deal of science in the decision making, I bought a handlebar mounted Inroserm Bike Frame Bag Waterproof product. It's yet to be road-tested so we shall see whether this was a good choice or not.

It's easy to adjust the position but it doesn't feel like there's much resistance so I have a feeling it may move in-ride due to bumps and vibration. Hopefully I'm wrong about this.

It's otherwise unobtrusive though and very easy to unclip from the mount without removing the phone from the sleeve so you can carry it with you when you park the bike and pop into a shop.